Plaudits and a rare bloom for Botanic Garden

Male flowers on the Amborella in the University's Botanic Garden Nick Wray

28 October 2009

The University’s Botanic Garden has been deemed ‘a significant element in the city’s success’ in the South West Britain in Bloom 2009 competition - just as a rare, hard-to-germinate plant comes into flower.

The University’s Botanic Garden has been deemed ‘a significant element in the city’s success’ in the South West Britain in Bloom 2009 competition. Bristol won a gold medal and will now automatically be entered into the national competition for 2010.

Professor Simon Hiscock, Director of the Botanic Garden, said: ‘I am delighted that once again judges for Britain in Bloom have recognized the Botanic Garden in their honours list for the South West.'

Further flourishing is in evidence at the Garden, with the flowering of Amborella trichopoda, the most primitive flowering plant in the world. Professor Hiscock collected the Amborella seed in 2007 when he visited New Caledonia, an island in the southwest Pacific; the Garden’s Deputy Curator, Penny Harms, was responsible for their germination – a process that takes up to six months.

The Botanic Garden is the only garden in Britain to have Amborella trichopoda, and one of just a handful worldwide to have grown it from seed to flowering.